Making an all-new holiday video based on one of the world’s most beloved animated movies might seem like a beastly burden.
After all “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast,” a critical and box office smash, was the only animated feature ever nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Yet, Walt Disney Home Video has created a beauty with “Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas” ($26.99), an “untold chapter” of the 1991 animated masterpiece.
Released this week, the video reunites the major vocal talents from the original film. Former teen heartthrob Robby Benson once again plays the tormented Beast, and sweet-voiced Paige O’Hara joins him as the kindhearted Belle. Also returning are the motherly teapot Mrs. Potts (Angela Lansbury), the suave candelabra Lumiere (Jerry Orbach) and the uptight mantel clock Cogsworth (David Ogden Stiers). New to the cast are the immensely talented Tim Curry as Forte the evil pipe organ, Paul (Pee-wee Herman) Reubens as his henchman, Fife the piccolo, and Bernadette Peters as Angelique the Christmas ornament.
Unlike Disney’s disappointing “Aladdin” home video series, which also put adored feature film characters into new situations, “The Enchanted Christmas” follows the standards set by the original film.
Granted, there’s nothing as spectacular as the dancing china number in “Beauty and the Beast’s” Busby Berkeley-style sequence “Be Our Guest”–a Christmas decorating scene doesn’t compare. Still, the video is a quality production in all categories including animation, acting, story and music.
The story takes place in the middle of the original movie. The Beast, his household object servants and his gloomy castle remain under a spell, which an enchantress cast on a Christmas past. The beast, who is really a prince who must learn to love and be loved to break the spell, holds Belle prisoner hoping she will fall for him.
Although the Beast has outlawed Christmas in the castle, Belle decides he needs the holiday. She plans a celebration with the help of the castle’s enchanted staff.
Meanwhile, the dastardly Forte plots to keep Belle and the Beast from falling in love and breaking the spell. This being a Disney production, all ends happily for the castle’s inhabitants. The conniving pipe organ, of course, meets his maker.
Parents of small children should be advised that the booming computer-generated Forte is so horrific he could scare toddlers. Curry, who has played scores of animated and live-action bad guys, says cautionary tales need frightening villains like the “silky and smooth” Forte to provide valuable lessons.
“I’m always a bit nervous when they soften up villains to the point where they’re not scary at all,” he says.
Forte, however, is not the only frightening aspect of this production. Unfortunately, the story contains a few too many dark elements, such as a scary scene where Belle nearly drowns while searching for the perfect Christmas tree. After all, we’re talking Christmas here.
Still, the video–which also strongly emphasizes such values as faith and hope–could become a holiday classic.
———-
“Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas”
(star) (star) (star)
